You know when I started writing these Sunday Thoughts and agreeing with myself to use whatever verses came up in my Bible Verse Generator I knew it might be difficult at times. God likes to make me think real deep at times. I’ll just put it that way. Today I’m thinking deep.

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I try to be good. I fail. I fail every day, in some way. Sure I might do good in this way one day but then the next day I blow it. I stumble. I try to be the good Christian, but I stumble. Yeah, I realize I will never be perfect here on earth. Only Jesus ever was. I wish all Christians realized that. I wish non-Christians realized Christians didn’t have to be perfect nor thought of ourselves as perfect. But hey, things are the way they are. Doesn’t mean we can’t change them. Maybe today you can help start some changing.

I’ll tell you how difficult today’s verses are for me to get just right in explaining. Or getting thoughts from. This is like my fourth or fifth version of this. I think part of the reason I’m having a problem is because I do a daily Christian study and I just did it right before this so I am in that same mind. So let me take a moment and get out of that mode of mind. (Yes, I am actually doing all of this as I do it.)

Do you remember what it was like to be a child? I’m not talking about playing in the yard or riding your bike. I’m talking about how you thought. How you felt. It’s almost impossible to capture that isn’t it. In today’s verses Jesus tells he disciples to do just that or they won’t get into Heaven. And then he gives a warning.

1At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” ² He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. ³ And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:5-6

⁵ And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. ⁶ “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea

You know the disciples always seemed to wonder who were going to be the big guys in heaven.  And we only have some of the times they asked about it. Can you imagine how tiresome that must have gotten. Jesus having to repeat himself over and over?  Well God did it all through the Old Testament, didn’t He?

Jesus basically tells them to be like children and depend on their Father, believe Him, follow Him, learn from Him, and give no thoughts of what greatness is.

People sometimes wonder about the whole drowning statement. What does Jesus mean by this? Think of it like this; you have a child and someone causes them to do something bad, say drugs, get drunk and I mean a child, a little kid. What would you do to that person?

How what Jesus is saying is it would be better for that person to have died from drowning rather than to have done something that would  have caused him to face the anger and rage of the Father.

You force drugs in my son, and well . . . I’m  a Christian, but I’m not perfect. I can imagine my rage at that. God’s rage would be so much more than that, beyond our imagining. And just think, my son is one of God’s children.

But well, I know what is going on for real. The enemy is at work. He is using others to make things happen. People aren’t born with their lives planned out to be this or that. Things happen along the way that make things turn out the way they do. I would like to say I could forgive anything.  God gave everyone the chance at forgiveness.

I’m not God. I can forgive a lot of things in this world done by people because I know the truth of what’s behind it. But, it would be best that you strap a car around your neck and throw yourself in the ocean before I got to you.

For the enemies of Jesus, and really I can’t understand why anyone would not embrace his teachings and ideas, but for his enemies, your millstone is around your neck right now. Lucky you there is a sword that can cut it away. Some call it a tree, some a cross, some might see it as a sword.

I didn’t intend to get preachy today. I never do really. I have a site for a bit of the preachy, although I don’t really get preachy with it. (Why do I have Will Smith singing in my head?) But really today was about not caring about being the greatest in this or that. Be the best that you can be. Don’t worry about all of that glory stuff. Seriously, do your best. That’s what I tell my son. Do I want him to have A’s on his report card? Of course. But I tell him just to do his best. If I see him come home with a bad grade and I know he studied, I’m good with it. Bad grades happen. I mean you could ask ‘B’ that if he were on here.

Well that’s the end of this rambling nonsense today. Til next week, God bless you and pray daily. Start out your day with some quiet time with God to start that day off on the right foot. Trust me, it helps.

Much Respect

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